AbitibiBowater halts work at 5 plants

AbitibiBowater announced Thursday it will suspend operationsat five plants,four of them in Canada.

The shutdownsstart Oct. 31 and willcontinue for an indefinite period.Its Canadianunion said the move will affect 1,500 jobs.

AbitibiBowater based in Montreal will completely shut down itsdigitalpaper plant in Beaupre, Que., resulting in340 lost jobs.

The company will also shut one of two newsprint plants in Clermont, Que., and lay off another 120 workers. In Fort Frances, Ont., 75 people will lose their jobs as a commercial printing papercloses.

The company announced it will cut production in half at it newsprint operation In Brooklyn, N.S., and its 300employees there willwork reduced hours. In Coosa Pines, Ala., the firm willlay off 85 people.

Company restructuring

AbitibiBowater spokesman Pierre Choquette blamed a worldwide drop in demand for all types of paper.

"For the commercial printing papers, such as the [kind] produced in Beaupr, we're talking about a 20 per cent drop since the beginning of the year," said Choquette.

Choquette said the company has gone from 11 operating mills to seven in the last two years. About 800 of AbitibiBowater's workers have lost their jobs.

Theclosures "are disasters of historical proportions for communities that have been a mainstay of the Canadian forest industry," Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, said in a release.

Coles said the closures could have beenprevented if the Canadian government hadput in place a program of loan guarantees for forest companies.The union wantsa federal-provincial task forces to be appointed to find new owners for theclosed mills.

AbitibiBowater has been restructuring since April, and the company warned weeksago that operations could be cut.